From Rose Bowl Right to Bloated Tebow, Inside Andy Reid’s Deep Catalog of Trick Plays
If we know anything about the Chiefs coach, it’s that the man loves a creative trick play. Before Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Eagles, let’s look back at the Trickster God’s most creative trick plays of seasons past.
Stopping the Kansas City Chiefs is hard enough as is. They have the best quarterback in football—maybe the best quarterback ever—in Patrick Mahomes, a cannon-armed king who has made the AFC championship game in every season he’s been Kansas City’s starter. They have Travis Kelce, the league’s best active tight end; he’s a matchup nightmare whose versatility makes him unguardable even when opponents know he’s the no. 1 target. They led the NFL in scoring and yards per play and are back in the Super Bowl for the third time in five years.
And then, grinning on the sideline, is Andy Reid—not only one of the all-time great offensive minds in football, but a fiend for unusual trick plays. Reid knows he could win a conventional football war, but in his greatest moments of triumph, he seems to enjoy completely baffling the opposition with a creative catalog of plays nobody else has even dreamed about.
Most NFL trick plays are something you’ve seen before. The Eagles famously ran Philly Special in their Super Bowl win against the Patriots five years ago, but that was a design that had been run at the college and NFL levels many times—then–Eagles head coach Doug Pederson admitted his staff had cribbed it from a Bears game the year before. Lists of the greatest NFL trick plays ever will often feature the Saints’ Super Bowl onside kick, which was literally just an onside kick in a critical moment rather than a unique play design.
But Reid will invent strange new football ideas unlike anything that has been seen before—or at least not in the past few decades—and run them in the biggest moments of a season. And while his trick plays may appear like cockamamie inventions of a football mad scientist, they often take advantage of the unique strengths and talents of his superstar players. They are gimmicks and yet functional. “If you practice them long enough, they aren’t trick plays,” Reid said when I asked about his trick plays on Monday night, “they’re just plays.”
Reid isn’t spilling about his plans to unveil any new trick plays in Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Eagles, but none of us should be surprised if it happens. To prepare for this seemingly inevitable moment, join me on a deep dive into the greatest trick plays and packages of Andy Reid, the NFL’s Trickster God.
The Camouflaged Eagle
What was the trick?
One time back in Reid’s days as Philadelphia’s head coach, the Eagles tried to hide a player in plain sight. Wide receiver Riley Cooper lay flat on his belly in the end zone on a kickoff return. With the opposing Saints kicking off from 75 yards away, they were unlikely to notice the bump on the end zone turf. If they did notice anything amiss, it might have been that the Eagles looked like they had only 10 guys on the field.
The return man, Brandon Boykin, caught the kick and returned it to the left, then spun around and threw across the field to Cooper, who was virtually unguarded on the right side of the field.
Did it work?
In our hearts, yes. The Saints didn’t see Cooper, who caught the pass and ran 94 yards to the end zone for a touchdown, but unfortunately, Boykin’s throw clearly went forward, and forward passes aren’t allowed on kickoff returns. The score was wiped off the board, and the penalty meant the Eagles offense got the ball on the 3-yard line.
Why was it beautiful?
NFL teams practice infinitely complex strategies to get defenses to forget about a player for a split second, and Reid was willing to say, “Hey, you think they’ll notice if we have a guy lying down on the field?” If only that trick hadn’t been dependent on a cornerback throwing the ball 40 yards across the field. Luckily for Chiefs fans, Reid would get a bit more practical over the years.
The Poe Package
What was the trick?
Beginning in 2014, the Chiefs began using 346-pound nose tackle Dontari Poe in goal line packages as a fullback, because he weighs 346 pounds. It worked exceptionally well, as Kansas City scored touchdowns on his first two plays as a blocker. Knowing that teams expected Poe to block in these situations, Reid began using his behemoth in other ways. On three separate plays in 2015 and 2016, Poe served as a runner, pass catcher, and passer.
Did it work?
Yes, 100 percent of the time. Poe had three snaps handling the ball and scored touchdowns on each of them. And all were easy: His jump pass (code name: Bloated Tebow) was to a wide-open receiver; his receiving touchdown (code name: Hungry Pig Right) was out of a formation that put over 1,000 pounds of Chiefs players against a single Raiders safety.
As such, Poe is the only 300-pound player ever to throw an NFL touchdown and the heaviest player to score a rushing touchdown. (Yes, heavier than Refrigerator Perry!) Sadly, the receiving TD was technically a backward pass, costing him a spot on that meaty leaderboard.
Why was it beautiful?
Reid seemed to take special joy in setting up his biggest player for touchdowns. Reid is a big boy himself, a Santa-shaped former offensive lineman who fondly discusses his mac-and-cheese recipes and passion for cheeseburgers. (On Super Bowl media night this week, I watched three separate people ask Reid to name his favorite burger place, as well as a fourth person who asked about his favorite KC BBQ joint.) Perhaps Reid knew better than anyone that when everybody wants to talk about how big you are, they might overlook your other talents. He turned Poe’s power into a decoy for his grace.
Rose Bowl Right
What was the trick?
In the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory over the 49ers three years ago, they ran a play inspired by the elaborate pre-snap shifts of the early era of the sport—specifically, a play from the 1948 Rose Bowl. (Apparently, the Chiefs offensive staff preps for games by grinding tape so old that it actually predates the concept of “tape.”) The Chiefs lined up in a diamond formation with quarterback Patrick Mahomes in position to take the snap, then he and the three players in the backfield spun around like ballerinas:
The spin led the players to be aligned slightly to the right, with RB Damien Williams now in position to catch a direct snap.
Did it work?
The fourth-and-1 run picked up a first down and moved the ball all the way to the footstep of the goal line, and the Chiefs scored a touchdown two snaps later.
I don’t know whether the play worked specifically because of the funky spins as opposed to exceptional blocking up front and a heroically tough run by Williams, but I choose to believe the spins helped.
Why was it beautiful?
THEY RAN A PLAY FROM 1948.
IN THE SUPER BOWL.
IN 2020.
Kelce the QB
What was the trick?
The Chiefs have one of the top three things that arouse football announcers: a non-QB who used to play quarterback. (The other two things that are broadcaster catnip: a football player who used to play college basketball or attended Harvard. If a Harvard basketball player ever makes the NFL as a wide receiver, an announcer will spontaneously combust on air.) It so happens that this Chiefs player is Kelce, their superstar tight end—a high school QB who initially committed to Cincinnati to play that position and took snaps out of the wildcat as a freshman. Every once in a while, the Chiefs let Kelce throw the ball, and he now has four NFL passing attempts after attempting just one pass in college.
Did it work?
Eventually! Kelce’s first career NFL pass in 2017 was a hilarious disaster, with the tight end going full hero mode and launching a bomb for a comically easy interception, miles off target and into double-coverage. He also managed to throw an incompletion to a wide-open Patrick Mahomes on a Philly Special–type play in 2020. His lone regular-season completion came later in 2020, on an underhand throw that Byron Pringle turned into a first down on sheer willpower.
Kelce did, however, throw a touchdown in last season’s playoffs against the Steelers. He caught the ball and faked a handoff before moving toward the line of scrimmage; when the defense committed to stopping the run, he threw an easy touchdown to Pringle, who had initially feigned that he’d stay in to block.
Why was it beautiful?
Clearly, Kelce is not a particularly skilled thrower. If anything, his QB experience is a detriment, because when the Chiefs ask him to throw the ball, he hears the NFL Films music in his head and starts trying to show the world that he’s Mahomes 2.0. But the Chiefs keep letting him try anyway, seemingly motivated more by a desire to keep their charismatic star happy than by any actual football benefit that his throwing provides.
Mahomes in Motion
What was the idea?
NFL teams are allowed to have exactly one player go in motion, and in almost every case, this player is a receiver. I’d never even considered that the QB could do it. But in a 2020 game against the Panthers, the Chiefs faked like they were going to execute a wildcat snap and put Mahomes in motion, moving back to the middle from his initial alignment behind the right guard. He caught the snap while on the run, did a 180-degree spin back to the right, and delivered a throw to Demarcus Robinson while still on the run.
Did it work?
Yes, extremely well. Other than the QB being in motion, this play was simple, with just two receivers running routes—and yet Robinson got wide open in the back of the end zone because the Panthers’ only linebackers completely evacuated the middle of the field to deal with the threat of Mahomes rolling left. Robinson pretended to block for a split second, as if it were a designed run for the QB, then easily sprinted past his cornerback as soon as he decided to run a route.
Why was it beautiful?
Every week we see the damage caused by Mahomes’s ability to throw on the run, but usually Mahomes goes on the move only if protection breaks down. Here, the Chiefs managed to get this dynamic without anything bad happening. They subjected the defense to the chaos of the QB scramble without having to experience the chaos themselves.
The Kelce Dumps
What was the idea?
A Chiefs meme of the early Mahomes era was “Fuck it, Tyreek’s down there somewhere”—the idea was that sometimes, the best play was to have Mahomes rear back and hurl it as far as he could, because Tyreek Hill would probably catch it. The polar opposite is “Fuck it, Kelce’s right here”—a series of plays where the Chiefs abandoned the concept of “passing” and just had Mahomes plop ugly wobblers over to Travis Kelce from the 1-yard line.
One play had a design similar to the Poe-receiving touchdown mentioned above—Kelce lined up behind three blockers in a diamond formation, essentially forming a second offensive line to the right of the formation. To get the ball to Kelce as quickly as possible, Mahomes threw a chest pass:
On another such play, Mahomes did a big windup and threw a softball-style riseball to Kelce. (The Chiefs have also run an identical play for fullback Anthony Sherman.)
Did it work?
I mean, duh.
Why was it beautiful?
Like I said, Mahomes may be the best football thrower ever. The power, the accuracy, the finesse, the arm angles and jump throws, the improvisational skill—he does it all. And sometimes Reid totally ignores that and asks him to throw a football like someone who’s never seen one before to maximize the damage Kelce can do. Sometimes the most fascinating thing about a talent like Mahomes is when the Chiefs choose not to use it.
Ring Around Mahomes-ie
What was the idea?
Last month in a prime-time game against the rival Raiders, the Chiefs linked arms and spun around like they were in the Midsommar May Queen dance, spinning and spinning and spinning until it was time to break the huddle and set up a formation:
It’s a particularly silly form of any number of “sugar huddle” formations meant to catch defenses off guard by holding a huddle late to keep the defense from knowing where players are aligned until instants before the snap. It’s the same idea as Michigan lining all 11 players up in a row in a sort of Wolverine centipede before getting to the line of scrimmage late in the play clock.
But the specific way in which the Chiefs executed the spinny huddle was important. Mahomes was the first to stop spinning, and did so all the way in the back of the huddle, with 10 players in between him and the defense. The Chiefs then emerged in a formation with three players in front of Mahomes, making it hard for the Raiders defense to ID where he was. The play started with a snap to running back Jerick McKinnon, who pitched to Mahomes, who then threw a pass back to WR Kadarius Toney on the other side.
It’s a really effective screen format. Normally, a QB has mere seconds to get a screen pass off because the defense is bearing down on them. In this case, the Las Vegas defense didn’t even know where Mahomes was at the snap, and when he finally got the ball, he was seemingly miles behind the line of scrimmage and all the way over to the right side of the field. This gave the entire Chiefs offensive line time to form a full wall of blockers for Toney.
Did it work?
Yes and no, and yes and no. On one hand, the Raiders had a player in position to tackle Toney as soon as he caught the ball. But that player whiffed, and the unusual formation seems to have worked, as the Raiders had no one else near enough to make a play, allowing Toney to sprint into the end zone easily for a score. But the play was called back for holding—but the hold seems to have been completely imaginary. I’d grade this one a 6.5 out of 10 on the “did it work” scale.
Why was it beautiful?
It’s the perfect summary of an Andy Reid trick play. It looks like literal child’s play and feels unserious, and even sparks a brief debate about whether being so jokey is disrespectful to the opponent. And yet it served a legitimate football purpose, and caused enough confusion to enable a successful play design. Reid makes sense out of nonsense. He’s the NFL’s all-time greatest trick play artist—and that just means he’s good at coaching football.